


No Need to Run and Hide (Wonderful Life)

by philippcarlyle



Series: Golden 20's Criminal Barlyle [1]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV), The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: 1920's!Barlyle, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gangs, Lots of dialogue, M/M, Organized Crime, adding more as i write more, peaky blinders crossover, they do dangerous stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-23 00:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13775925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philippcarlyle/pseuds/philippcarlyle
Summary: this is gonna be snippets and one shots set in the 1900s and is yet another AU of minePeaky Blinders setting with TGS characters sprinkled on top





	No Need to Run and Hide (Wonderful Life)

**Author's Note:**

> based off on this prompt on tumblr:
> 
> “Listen here, Pal–that was one time! And it was only three bullets–not five!”
> 
> (as per usual, unbeta'ed and I am not a native speaker)
> 
> Enjoy!

“I don’t take him with me.”, the blue-eyed man argues. He avoids the older man’s gaze burning a figurative hole in his back. He can feel it. But in front of him the pair of eyes isn’t warm and understanding either. He sighs and throws his hands up, when Charles shakes his head.

“That’s not your choice right here. I thought this through, and as I manage this, and _not you_ -“, he points out, “I say: you need the help and Barnum is the best choice.”

“Thanks, Tom!”, triumphs P.T., but Philip is not yet willing to accept his fate. He leans closer to their finance manager – officially, that is. The small man remains unimpressed and raises an eyebrow. For him the conversation ended five minutes ago, when he gave Philip and Phineas their instructions.

“Please, it’s gonna be a disaster.”, he tries a different tactic. Recounting their last duties, this statement wasn’t entirely true. They worked well together, smoothly and quite natural. But not always, as Philip remembers their orders from a month ago that really ended in a disaster.

“No discussion, Carlyle, just prepare yourselves. You got four days, at most and I have high expectations.”, Charles – to their scene mainly known as Tom Thumb – ends the discussion. He dismisses Philip with a wave of his hand and unfolds a news paper. Philip bites his tongue and nods. When he turns around and is faced with a grinning Barnum, he rolls his eyes. Without any motivation to fulfil their task, he grabs the man’s wrist and pulls him along. The taller man easily matches his pace, even dares to skip from time to time as they leave the hidden rooms and corridors and enter open streets. Without a care P.T. whistles a war song and softly pokes the bandage wrapped around his ribs. Philip let’s go of his sleeve, but they remain close together, walking in lockstep, arms brushing. Philip could scream. It’s not that he doesn’t like the other man, quite the contrary – but working with him was difficult.

“I need a drink.”, Philip states right as they enter their bar. Over the years and rise of the Stratton family’s not so secretive schemes and actions, infiltrations and arms trade along other business branches, they’ve become influential and powerful. They make up an interesting picture, as a criminal organization that is not connected by blood. Only few of those had made a difference lately, but that changed with the Stratton’s. They weren’t really the “Stratton’s” as Charles was the only one with that name. But he was known as one of their leaders and the name established itself easily enough. They kept it.

“The usual, sweetie.”, the taller man tells the bar keeper, a beautiful albino lady. She greets the men who take their – usual – spot at a table close to the bar. Except for them, there are only two guests and those are family too. A man with tattoos all over, only lightly clothed, showing off his body art, and a black women covered in gold jewellery. They nod at Philip and P.T., then leave to one of the back-rooms for private conversations. Philip locks the front door to the bar, because they needed the private space too.

Back on his chair, P.T. already circles a fingertip over the rim of his whiskey glass, creating sounds clear and pure as a bell. Philip only tolerates it for half a minute, before he stops him once again with a firm hand on his wrist. P.T. smirks and lets go of his glass. Philip regards him with a long look, after he draws his hand back. They look at each other; amused brown orbs meet hesitant blue ones.

“Relax, it’ll be fine. We’re one hell of a team.”, P.T. says and takes a sip.

“Oh yeah, we are. Hellish is a nice description for it.”, Philip argues and he knows he sounds defensive. He feels like it too but has all rights to feel so, if someone actually bothered to ask him. He points at the man opposite of him. He needs to get it out, one final time to position him. He eyes the man’s torso, knows of the bandages under the shirt, the gauze at his upper arm.

“I don’t wanna drag you out of a river again, hide for hours and somehow make you survive five bullets, you asshole.”

“Listen here, Pal–that was _one_ time! And it was only three bullets–not five!”, P.T. throws back a defence. It manages to put an exasperated smile on the younger man’s face. He shakes his head and empties his glass with one swig.

“It was arms trafficking; we have done that a million times! There shouldn’t have been any injuries at all.”, Philip disagrees and his eyebrows draw together. The irony is not lost to the men, no wounds at illegally handling weapons was a brave expectation and unrealistically high standard to have. But – at least to them – nothing major had happened before. Until now and it has the younger of them worried. He was never afraid to do the tricky duties for the gang, neither was P.T. otherwise they wouldn’t be part of it.

Philip licks his lips, looking for words. He leans back and thinks about their situation rationally. There shouldn’t be any issues, technically, like Charles said. They have done this often enough and most of the time it went without any trouble. Still, he wants to make sure they never get into a situation like they experienced, and hardly survived, last month.

“Promise me to stick to the plan.”, he demands.

“Yeah, yeah, sure. But plans are boring and if I see an opportunity I will take it.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Even if we could benefit from it?”, P.T. inquires with a sly grin. He usually goes through with the plans they come up with, because they are reasonable and well thought through, but he was not opposed to breaking rules – that’s what got him into the crime scene, and later the Stratton family in the first place. He sees the younger man huff out an annoyed breath and answers with an innocent shrug.

“If they don’t kill you, eventually I will.”, Philip mutters and P.T. knows he’s won this round. Only problem is, he can’t see the younger man unhappy. And right now ‘unhappy’ is more than fitting for his expression.

“It’s gonna be fine. I promise.” He stands and takes their empty glasses over to the bar. Their bar keeper has disappeared some time ago unnoticed. On his way back to their table, he stops behind Philip’s chair. The younger man suppresses a pleased grin, when he looks up, his head bowed back.

“I promise.”, P.T. repeats once again and in the safety of the empty bar, kisses the younger man. It’s strange because they’re upside down, but Philip smiles into the display of affection anyways. The older man tastes like whiskey and adventure.

“Why do I keep up with you?”, Philip wonders amused, when they break apart. P.T. still hovers above him, grinning like he won a million bucks. Or robbed a bank. Philip only feels the adrenaline rushes he knows from the war, when he’s on a dangerous mission or with the other man nowadays. Both at the same time are the most exciting highs Philip’s lived out so far.

“Because-“, P.T. kisses Philip’s forehead. “…you…”, he kisses Philips nose and Philip pouts at the silly behaviour. It earns him a proper kiss that swipes the pout right away. He chuckles and gently pushes the older man away from him.

“Because I what, hm?”, he asks and P.T. can see the jest sparkling in the younger man’s eyes. They’re back at the game, he knows it. Over the last weeks it wasn’t as easy, because P.T. had to be careful and lay low after his injuries. Philip didn’t take it easy either, worried about P.T. and mad at himself for letting something like that happen to them.

P.T. pulls the shorter man out of his chair and spins him around as if they were dancing. Philip lets him have this fun, before he stops, chest to chest with the tall man.

“Because I’m your partner in crime.”, he finally finishes his sentence and causes Philip to laugh again.

“Interesting. Let’s plan a crime then.”

“It’s a crime we can’t plan anything else right now.”, P.T. sighs dramatically. Philip lightly shoves him and grins. He loves the free-spirited man, but sometimes it’s hard to keep up with his attitude. Not that Philip doesn’t enjoy his games and his teasing – it’s just exhausting and at the most inappropriate moments tends to turn the younger man incredibly on. He figures he can be glad, they’re alone right now.

“You need to sort out your priorities. Business first, remember?”

“Yeah, but I’m a hedonist. Can’t you be my ‘business’?”

“I am literally none of your business.”, Philip quips and puts on a stern look for a moment. When he sees how the tall man starts to brood, he grins.

“Not now. We have to go over the details so everything will go as we plan it, yeah? But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some time for eh, something else.”

P.T. barks a laugh at that, confirms Philip’s words with a brief nod and gestures towards one of the back doors of the bar. He is ready to talk business, especially with the prospect of spending some more time with the younger man later. He seldom says it, but he misses Philip whenever they work separately. Being the perfect pretence of a gentleman, he holds the door open for Philip to enter the small office. Philip smiles. When he passes the taller man, his mind already races with organisational facts and numbers.

“Can’t wait.”, P.T. whispers and on a spontaneous idea – honestly, fuelled by the view of the younger man’s backside – cheekily smacks Philip’s ass in those perfectly tailored trousers. It evokes a surprised yelp and incredulous look over his shoulder from the younger man.

“Are you kidding me? Get a grip on yourself, for God’s sake.”, he grumbles and hopes, the heat that fills his body doesn’t show on his face. They need to get into their business mode. Right. Now. He closes the door and pushes P.T. into the room and takes a seat. He takes the other one and a deep breath, only when he counted to ten, he allows himself to look at his partner again. Partner in crime, but also so much more.

**Author's Note:**

> if you got suggestions for more snippets from the life of the Stratton family and Barlyle gangster business - tell me!


End file.
